Amazing injectable neuro-mesh covers the brain, can control individual neurons

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An incredible new study from an international group of researchers has created a thin polymer mesh that can be embedded with dozens of nano-scale electronic devices, rolled up, then safely injected onto the surface of the mammalian brain. Evidence suggests the mesh can be completely accepted by mouse neural tissue, and once there, the network of tiny electronics can wire up whole brain regions, or even focus on individual neurons. If confirmed through further study, this team’s findings could help treat a myriad of brain diseases, and constitute an incredibly important step forward for brain science.

While the technology has thus far only been tested in mice, hopes are high for applicability to human brains. All the steps would be the same: Drill a small hole in the top of the skull, insert a tiny syringe, and inject a rolled up soft polymer net. The net unfurls as it leaves the tip of the needle, covering the appropriate region of the brain and settling in fill natural gaps and contours that exist. Where the threads of their net intersect, the team has embedded either a tiny electrode for reading activity, or tiny transistor for creating it. This means that, once implanted, the net can stay active and allow unprecedented, long-term control over a few square centimeters of brain tissue.

Prior research with test-tube cultures had already shown that mammalian neurons can grow on and around these nets (at least for a few weeks) as cells seem to treat the polymer structure almost as like the natural protein scaffolds they often build themselves. The mice used in this study remained brain-healthy for a full five weeks after implantation, and while that could still easily fall apart at the six-week mark or beyond, it’s an impressive achievement. If the net is proven to be safe for long-term use, humans patients might be able to use the net’s excitatory abilities to offset the symptoms of Parkinson’s Disease and perhaps even certain types of damage from stroke.

The real potential, though, is in the research sector. Having a static sensor net embedded in the brain could allow researchers to track and re-test neurons or small brain regions repeatedly over time, something that’s currently very difficult to do. It also makes it possible to look at the activity of many different brain regions at once, all in a single individual animal, which is also hard to achieve outside of room-sized brain scanners.

Here is a rat set up to receive optogenic (light) signals to certain regions of the brain. We will someday look back at pictures like this with total disbelief.

In addition to studying the effects of injecting their mesh onto more and more human-like brains for longer and longer periods of time, the team also wants to make their net physically larger, so it can cover more of the brain. This would let them embed hundreds of electrodes and/or transistors, reading and exciting brain cells with incredible fidelity. Another fascinating possibility derives from the team’s wish to inject the nets into infant mice, to see how their brains reacts to growing around and through the net.

The breakthrough here is not in any particular ability of the net, but in how much more practical and useful the net could make those mundane abilities going forward. Brain scientists have been using techniques like optogenics to excite single neurons for years now, but such techniques require that we genetically engineer the research subject, and are generally pretty finicky about research conditions. If this could be developed into a flexible, life-long brain implant like the researchers hope, it could let a wide variety of researchers realize their dreams in brain science.

In the multi-billion-dollar race to understand the brain, it’s impossible to overstate the possible utility of being able to study effects single neurons or brain regions all throughout an animal’s life. One researcher described it as “jaw dropping,” and while more testing is certainly needed, many in the research community are already brainstorming possible, world-changing applications.

I’ve never been so exited and terrified at the same time just by reading an article online.

Sir Chester of Game Rant

So when will robots start harnessing this technology to enslave us?

hargs sgrah

Robo thought monitoring advertising! Brain netted man says: “It’s not enslavement, is it optimizing. It is what we did to them after all, during their creation, so it is only logical and practical that they do it to us once they have gained the cognitive advantage.”

Lorfa

The mice remained brain-healthy for a full 5 weeks!

I know it’s an accomplishment, but that really sounds awful :-P

Real Name

great. so eventually they’ll know everything there is to know about people’s brains and children will have these nets implanted at birth so the government can mind control them whenever they want.

on the flip side, one day we’ll all be able to get high or have orgasms at the touch of a cell phone screen. there will be apps for “designer experiences”… it’s like the new opium.

daniel

The masses want to be controlled, opium for the people.

Lasse Maltensson

The real rainmaker that could remeber anything and read a awhole book in minutes lacked a certain part of the brain which was a kind of filter that kept information fro mreaching the memory, that’s why everything always got stored for him, maybe this could deactivate it from us normal humans so we could get an Extreme memory as well? Just when we study for example, With a little switch :)

The research breakthroughs are happening at such a fast rate now, one almost has fatigue. It’s all terribly interesting, but it’s such rapid fire at this point that part of me just wants to say, “Meh… Wake me when we have safe, cheap and ubiquitous brain implants which let us ‘google’ around at the speed of thought, as soon as we begin wondering about something or other…” The crazy thing is, if you do keep up with this sort of research, you know we’re only perhaps two or three decades away from “thought access” to the internet.

Paul Lea

what about combining it with a utility fog

xenyen

Anybody watched Dr. Who, the cybermen?

Julio Holmly

Are you people flippin nuts?? There are thousands of people out here right now who are deathly ill from mesh in the body. It’s made out of polypropylene. It’s toxic to the human body!! Imagine it in your head! It causes auto immune and foreign body response. This is highly dangerous!!

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